Marathon Diary Week 3

Four very different athletes take on a marathon this Autumn all with completely different goals under the guidance of Coach Tune. Each week we will provide you with an athlete summary of their training week and their personal thoughts on how the week went and compare this is to Coach Tune’s account of their week. Both sides of the story are anonymous.

Athlete diaries

Keri’s week of training as she aims towards Frankfurt:

Monday - AM 6 miles in 52 mins.

A change to my planned week and everything brought forward a day to account for me going away. Ran off road to save the legs as now have a session tomorrow.

PM - mobility

Tuesday - AM session 2 x 1 mile, 4 x 800m, 8 x 400m

Dave and I, have felt in recent weeks, I’ve got more to give in sessions, so the plan was to run this at a harder effort than I have been doing. Really pleased with the paces! Big confidence boost especially only 48 hours after my long run. Having the confidence to push sometimes a bit harder on sessions is something to work on.

PM - core circuit

Wednesday - AM 9.5miles in 75 mins

Off road again by the river. All easy until marathon session on Friday.

PM - 60 min walk

Thursday - AM 4.4miles in 37 mins off road - again by the river.

PM 4.0 miles in 34 mins off road, similar route as the morning, followed by 6 x 30 secs strides, fairly relaxed!

Friday - AM 16 miles alternating between MP and 45 secs slower. Super pleased with 16 miles in 1hour49. 20 miles in total.

Saturday - AM 5.4 miles in 45 mins - away in Northumberland, first run - hills are back.

PM 30 min walk and 2 mile jog with my son.

Sunday - AM 13.2 miles in 1hour46, very easy, as covered a lot of elevation. Ran slightly shorter than planned but after another decent week of training and a 20 miler done 48 hours prior, I was quite happy to stop at this point.

Overall another positive week, positive sessions and everything seems to be going in the right direction. A significant amount off road to freshen the legs.

Another two weeks, before an easier week and then a planned race in the build up to Frankfurt! 🇩🇪

Matt’s week of training as he aims toward the Berlin marathon:

After a few tough weeks personally, Started to get back into a rhythm this week. But still didn’t really stick to a plan as such, just focused on enjoying the activity as a means of being social and using that as motivation to be more active.

Monday and Tuesday - went to the gym with mates and did 2 x 90min sessions. Mostly upper body strength work.

Wednesday - Recovered

 Thursday - Track with Rotherham Run Club. Small pyramids of 200-300-400-300-200 x4. I know diminishing fitness is due to a lack of speed work so wanted to go all out here and it felt good to get a short yet hard session in.

Friday - recovered

Saturday - Blizard Marathon Session. A good opportunity to get together and put the work in together.

Sunday - Recovered.

Exercise was definitely the solution and not the problem this week. The only goal here was just trying to get something done, get out the door and get moving.

Lee’s training for the week as he aims towards the Yorkshire marathon in October:

Another high volume week ticked off but this time with a few key sessions. Continued to work on a bit of speed midweek with some 600s. These felt tough getting down to around 10k pace with very little speed in the legs. 6x2.5miles working around my potential marathon hr. The aim this time is to be in better shape and be able to control of my heart rate early on in the marathon.  I did another 30mins at the top of recovery @5.28 pace which was marginally faster than last week. My final session was my first real long run at effort. I did 20 miles @sub6 pace and practiced my fueling by taking a gel and water every 4 miles. Having a bit of an easy week now to recover but also allow my body to adapt to the increased training it has just endured.

Finally we hear how Jenny’s training has gone as she also like Lee is doing the Yorkshire marathon: 

This week the main focus was the group marathon session on the Saturday, which was 15miles at marathon pace in total. Having felt that I had slightly overcooked things at the weekend we agreed to miss the Tuesday marathon pace run. In addition my right knee was still a little niggly from the steep camber roads of Scotland and it was concerning me. We agreed to do as much off-road this week and the rest of the runs we didn't need to run on the camber.

My marathon session went really well despite doing it solo and having a group of 10 in front of me taunting me every rep!  The loop we use at Hatfield is perfect for group training as it has a good surface and traffic free, but it does get windy! The loop was tailwind for a mile, headwind for a mile so it was hard to control pace. This is where I feel heart rate training really works as the tailwind was much faster than target pace and the headwind much slower with an average of 6:52 min/mile. I didn't mind running on my own as I know at some point in the race at York marathon I will be solo, so good practice. I had my mum for company on the bike for a while. Although she did fall off turning but i think her pride more than her bum hurt! Thanks to Callum Parke for helping her back up until I realised she had fallen. I finished knowing that I could have carried on at that pace for a lot longer.

The latter part of the week was really hot and my room at work is baking, coupled with a really hot run on Hatfield moors on Thursday and I struggle to hydrate at the best of times so Thursday/Friday night I was dehydrated and was so hot I couldn't sleep. My morning heart rate was really high and my heart rate variability (which in essence measures your readiness to train and how fresh you are) was really low Friday/Saturday - not good. This is where again heart rate training really works and highlights how a fixed plan and a non adaptable athlete* doesn't work. The plan on paper doesn't know that it's going to be really hot leaving two crap nights of sleep or that my knee is niggly from running 80+miles on steep camber!

In summary, week adapted to miss the Tuesday marathon paced session as felt I may overcook things, did loads of training off road/non camber roads to allow the niggle in my knee to settle, used my marathon heart rate zones rather than target pace on the Saturday session to complete the session which went really well and felt good despite the poor nights sleep and my HR/HRV being rubbish.

*For reference, in Scott Fauble's book his original plan from his coach in the appendix was changed by around 50% when you compare the actual training.

MON Strength session. No run - again means I have 48 hours recovery

TUES 10m @7:57 min/mile off road HR ave 136. No marathon paced run as felt overcooked things a bit last week

WED Group session 10*600ish at 10K effort off 1 min rec. Felt really comfortable to hit target paces

THURS 10m @7:5mins/miles off road HR ave 137. OMG it was baking!

FRI 4m @07:57 HR ave 134 then 6 x strides to finish. Strength session then LIVE Friday night class

SAT Group Marathon Session 6x2.5m off 90sec at marathon HR153-158. Ave 6.52min/mile. Solo run as no one was running my pace. Delighted with the session.

SUN 17.1m on/off road @8:01 HR ave 132. Strength session

Weekly Totals 69 miles: 1 x long run, 1 x short session, 1 x long session. 1 x strides. 30 mins yoga, 195 mins S&C, lots of cleaning! Totally surprising myself that I am doing 2+ hour runs with minimal moaning 😀.

Now the views from Coach Tune on each athlete compared to what the athlete sees!

First up is Keri Pearson who is aiming for a new pb in the Frankfurt marathon late October.

“Another excellent week nailed for Keri with only 2 real aims for the week, the first being for her to push that little bit harder on speed sessions which I think she is capable of doing and the other was a long solo run alternating paces. Both sessions were nailed and Kez is getting into great shape with 10 weeks to go so still a long way away yet.

Keri’s confidence has taken a bit of a hit in her last 2 marathons, having to be taken off course in a wheelchair in both and working purely on her fitness is just one element to her having a great run in Frankfurt!”

Next up is Matt’s training and he is working towards the first athlete to race in the Berlin marathon in September.

“Massive improvements from Matt this week and I encouraged him to come to the group session on Saturday without putting any pressure on him to do anything other than turn up.

He nailed an excellent session and was good to see him running with others and enjoying his running and more of the same is required. With such a short lead time into Berlin we have to be realistic on the end result and having a positive run is far more important than any time he might do”

Coach Tune next explains Lee Milburn’s week of training who is looking to be competitive in the Yorkshire marathon.

“Another week of big miles for Lee and although I think he is over doing the mileage he has a family holiday planned so we can use that as a down week and let the body adapt!

The marathon paced runs Lee has been doing shows me he is getting very fit very quickly so I wanted him this week to do a low volume but high intensity session of 600m reps with Tom who is also doing a marathon later in the year. These went well but I could tell that the change in pace was a bit of a struggle for him but would help to bring up his cruising pace which Saturday’s session proved as he looked very strong doing the Blizard marathon paced session.

With Lee going away on holiday we brought forward his long run a couple of days and his remit was pretty simple as I wanted him to warm then run 1x20 miles a tough under 6.00mins/mile before a cool down and to focus on fueling which he did perfectly including a pint of larger with an hour of finishing on a very hot day!

A much easier reduced week is now required which hopefully he will have while away”

Final thoughts are on Jenny’s training, who like Lee is doing the Yorkshire marathon:

“As I am able to see Jenny’s training a little more closehand it was obvious that a combination of things had led to her both over cooking things slightly and having a few more aches and pains. With this in mind I suggested dropping the mid week marathon paced session, getting off road a little more and running her speed and Saturday session much more controlled.

This seemed to help as the numbers on her Wednesday and Saturday session were just where we wanted and needed them to be.

Training hard has never been an issue for Jenny but managing the detailed stuff like sleep/hydration and stress management have a huge impact on her running so for her we need to consider these elements just as much as how hard we can run”

All in all another great week of training from the Team, there are signs of fatigue and over-cooking it creeping in so this needs to be managed as the race is a marathon and not a sprint!

Enjoy the read!